#i imagine she’d panic portal away as soon as she recouped enough aura hrghdgk ]

[etruatcaelum]

[ @aestasrosis // for salem ]

The last time anyone made it this far—the last time anyone dared try—the Great War was not yet halfway done, and the aftertaste of blood and fire draped the air like a pall even hundreds of miles to the north of the front. Salem can almost taste it again tonight as she haunts her benighted hunters: ink-black smoke feathers over the desiccated ground, a formless third shadow.

One moves less like a huntress than like prey, tense and white-knuckling the hilt of her sword. Terror flags behind her like a cape torn by wind. But the other…

Silver eyes. Scythe bared and gleaming silver itself in the moonlight, the leader strides ahead with the unshakable self-assurance of prophecy: if she had brought fear with her to Alukah, it seems she left it behind in the ashes of the grimm too young to fear her eyes.

In this state, Salem cannot bare her teeth; but the blackness becomes jagged and barbed with fury. Humans have claimed all the rest of Remnant for themselves, but Alukah belongs to grimm. To her.

How dare they bring their hatred here.

Salem gives no warning. Swift and silent, the dark mist whirls back together, hands flicking forward even as her fingers find shape. A great serpent of lightning boils off her claws to strike the sliver-eyed warrior’s fearful companion square between her shoulder-blades. The huntress screams as the bolt rips through her aura and hurls her off her feet.

She hits the ground hard, skidding in the dry grit as aftershocks wrench her body; her heart stutters, stops, starts again with an uneven, frantic rhythm, and the woman lies twitching and insensate.

“So,” Salem murmurs, a velvet undertone beneath the echoing shriek of thunder, “the warrior comes to slay the witch, hm?” Her hands spread wide in mocking invitation; venomously, she says, “Well, here she is.”